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May 19, 2019

Scripture Reading: Colossians 3:18-4:1

During every age, there is a struggle between children and their parents.  It is a conflict within families and a conflict between generations.  But in our day we have seen an increasing disdain for all authority, including parental authority.  In our peculiar era of lost reverence, children have sued their parents and even killed their parents.

We stand in desperate need of the truth of Colossians 3:20 … "Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord."  The command for children to obey their parents is rooted in a broader context of the child’s relationship to God.  The interaction between a child and a parent is not fundamentally a matter of sociology or psychology, but a matter of theology.  Parents who teach their children to have reverence for the Lord will be most effective in teaching their children obedience to their own instructions and warnings.

On the side of parents, there is a negative and positive aspect to child rearing.  Negatively, parents must not provoke their children to frustration (Col 3:21).  This provocation can be easily done by being unreasonably severe and domineering, by being preferential toward one child in the family, by being inconsistent or moody, by not keeping promises, by not listening, by being selfish.

Positively, it is the parent’s primary responsibility to instruct the child in the things of the Lord (cf. Eph 6:4).  What is more important in a child’s life than an understanding of the things of God?  This must be done both formally and informally, and with joy and love.  The main teacher of spiritual truth in the life of a child should not be the Sunday School teacher or youth pastor … it should be the child’s father and mother.  Children will usually grow to have the same perspective of and excitement for spiritual things as their parents.